News of Twin Oaks
As of 2016 our news stories are now appearing only on our public Facebook page.
On April 16 2003, the first night of Passover, a group of Twin Oakers joined together for a Seder. The Seder was held in Degania, one of our buildings that is named after a kibbutz in Israel. There were some traditional elements--Elijah's cup, matzoh ball soup, the Seder plate with the usual offerings, such as bitter herbs, a roasted egg, and shank of lamb. However, we also celebrated the Seder as a living ritual, modifying it as many people do, to focus on liberation for all who are oppressed. Our table included a cup for Miriam as well as Elijah, a beet on the Seder plate to include vegetarians (it "bleeds" as well), and an awareness of groups of people in our culture as well as those in other parts of the world who are currently suffering under oppression. We concluded the evening with various songs of liberation. Next Year in Utopia! [Posted 16-Apr-2003]
On March 8, International Women's Day, Twin Oaks celebrated by producing its own home-grown version of The Vagina Monologues. Following several weeks of rehearsals, 15 Twin Oakers read monologues, including 2 that we had written ourselves! So many members and friends came to see the performance that we cracked some floor trusses in the dining hall where it was being performed. During the week preceding the performance, each night had a special vagina-themed activity—self-exam night, art night, video night, writing night, and a women's ritual and dance. Women's culture is thriving at Twin Oaks! To read the monologues yourself, ask at a library or bookstore for The Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler.[Posted 08-Mar-2003]
(ClassSpeak: One of a series of events held by a culture group called The Junction). Here's part of a short article by Valerie, the faciliator: "At this Speak, we were naming class reality in our lives. There are many ways to do this, we were doinga particular way which is pretty middle-class in format. This related to the meta-issue of how class is—the people who name something always bring their worldview bias to the naming, and it is the people with power who get to do the naming. We wanted to be aware of this as we were speaking." [February 2003.]
As part of a long time tradition of putting on stage plays, Twin Oakers recently performed a parody of the famous musical.[Jan 2003]
Long term friend and frequent Twin Oaks guest Joan Mazza writes poetry about her experiences here. [Jan 11, 2003.]
Wood and ceramics arts thriving. Stella does a lot of work sculpting ceramics and Woody does various crafts in wood, etc. See our photo gallery and search under their names.
The hammock shop calendar tradition. Every month a (random, by signup) community member volunteers to make a new page for our shop wall calendar. This tradition has continued for many years. There've been some amazing much-praised creative efforts (and one controversial enough for members to request that month's page be covered from public view!). The Jan 2003 calendar had a movable sledding santa and pop-open windows for each day of the month with short sayings. Created by Heather. [Jan 2003.]
Moving through the yearly cycle: Many friends and family members joined us for our recent festivities to celebrate the New Year of the Gregorian calendar. Activities included a kids' performance of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, an excerpt from the upcoming Twin Oaks-modified production of Little Hammock Shop of Horrors, a coffeehouse featuring the talented performances of many of our members, a New Year's Eve yoga class, the Temple of Oracles, the Black and White Ball (big band music, colour-themed wardrobe encouraged), a quiet party, a kids party with fireworks at midnight, and of course an all-out rock-n-roll dancefest. New Year's Day featured a polar-bear dip in our pond, and annual Members Room Tour. [8 Jan 03]
A new webstore has opened offering products made by crafters at Twin Oaks and other intentional communities. At launch communitymade.com offers for online sale Cleo's quilts (sample below) and products made by community members at Tekiah, Acorn, Earthaven and We'Moon Land. [8 Jan 03.]
Sauna. Lynn and crew have been working steadily on the new sauna by the pond.
[Jan 9, 2003.]
Drought report. A few months of abnormally high rainfall have now ended our soil moisture deficit though the deep water table probably needs years yet to recover. We had to hand dig potatoes as the soil was too wet to use the tractor digger. [Dec '02]
International Flavor: During the year 2002 Twin Oaks welcomed participants in our Three-Week Visitor Program from various parts of the world including Canada, Germany, South Korea, Norway, Russia, and Spain. [7 Nov 02]
Gwen born to Thea and Tom. [Oct 16, 2002.]
Current member Sean, ex-member Elliot and Three-Week visitor Heidi representing Twin Oaks transformed themselves into 3 characters of the 2002 Haul of Justice: Purl Roshi, Yankee Rose and Dynamic Accumulator. The Haul of Justice is an annual bicycle tour in which participants become superheroes, complete with capes and jerseys, and bike from town to town volunteering at nonprofits and community projects.
The superheroes are self-funded, though by buying organic food in bulk and cooking simple meals costs are kept low. The Haul of Justice is not a formalized nonprofit, but rather a collection of friends interested in service, community, and traveling mindfully through a region. [Posted late 2002] See helping-others.org
Twin Oaks 35th Anniversary weekend celebration. June 16th is the official day. Many dozens of exmembers gathered here for the tours, talent shows, music, rock 'n roll dances, etc.
Rainbow hammock and chair. Stella got inspired, made a lovely rainbow hammock which hangs in front of Llano. Now she's making a chair. We have no current plans to sell such a product but who knows? Meanwhile, they're fun to look at. [May 2002.]
Annual Dumpster Dive event. For some years now Keenan and others have taken a few vans to the local university to pick through the student end-of-term discards. By tradition there is a Sunday afternoon mob scene behind Zk as interested Twin Oaks scavengers pick through the take. Costumes, junkfood, shelving, clothing (sometimes brand new), lamps, even working computers have been recovered for reuse. And it's really fun! [May 2002 .]
New well drilled. A local well drilling company sank a new water well for us to replace declining output from our old agricultural well. The same family-owned business drilled Twin Oaks' two other main wells 30 or so years ago. Besides putting on a great show the chosen site produced more water by far than any of our other wells drilled in the past. At a rated 70 gpm we should have sufficient water pumping capability for many years to come for irrigation and the Dairy. [May 2002.]